惠普吞下收购苦果

In some parts of the City of London, a sense of disbelief greeted the news last year that Hewlett-Packardhad agreed to pay $11bn for Autonomy, a British software company that had traded for half that value barely six months before.

在伦敦金融城(City of London)，有一些人曾对去年的一条消息心存疑惑。当时，美国公司惠普(Hewlett-Packard)同意支付110亿美元收购英国软件公司Autonomy，而在消息公布的6个月前，该英国公司的市值仅为这一收购价的一半。

“This deal defies logic, wrote Paul Morland, analyst at Peel Hunt, a UK brokerage. “We believe HP shareholders should be worried.

“这笔交易不符合逻辑，英国证券经纪公司Peel Hunt的分析师保罗·莫兰德(Paul Morland)当时写道，“我们认为，惠普股东应对此感到担忧。

Quite how much they should have worried has now been revealed. HP yesterday wrote down the value of its software business by $8.8bn, with more than $5bn of that due to alleged “serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy before the company was acquired.

他们应该担心到什么程度呢？现在这个问题有了答案。惠普近日将旗下软件业务的价值减记88亿美元，其中超过50亿美元要归咎于Autonomy在被收购前涉嫌存在“严重会计违规行为、披露不到位以及彻底的不实陈述。

For an already struggling HP, the massive writedown has set the seal on what has become its deal from hell. The inflated price of the Autonomy acquisition had already helped to sink one HP chief executive and is now set to enmesh the company’s directors in another of the seemingly endless succession of boardroom crises that have shaken the company in recent years.

对于已是举步维艰的惠普而言，大规模的资产减记表明，这笔埋下恶果的交易的影响有多严重。收购Autonomy所支付的过高价格是导致惠普一名首席执行官下台的原因之一，现在这件事又将让该公司董事陷入一场新的危机。近些年来，看似永无止境的一系列董事会危机令惠普遭受了重创。

Topping the list of urgent questions they now face: how closely did they dig into a company whose accounting had already prompted several analysts to raise a red flag?

他们现在面临的第一个迫切问题是：对于这家在会计方面曾经引起一些分析师警觉的公司，他们是否进行了足够详尽的调查？

That it has taken six months for HP to uncover the extent of the alleged irregularities, which were first raised in late May by a former senior Autonomy executive, will only add to the discomfort.

惠普用了6个月时间调查其所称的违规行为的严重程度，这一事实只会加剧人们的不安。今年5月末，Autonomy的一位前高管首次揭发了这些违规行为。

Well before HP showed up on the scene, there was already a vocal minority of financial analysts in the City raising questions about the solidity of Autonomy’s business – at times drawing an unusually fierce reaction from the company. Daud Khan, a JPMorgan Cazenoveanalyst now working at Berenberg, was banned from analyst meetings for almost a year after he questioned the group’s accounting practices.

在惠普露面之前，伦敦金融城已有几位金融分析师对Autonomy业务的可靠性提出质疑，当时，这引来了该公司不同寻常的激烈反应。现在供职于Berenberg的原摩根大通嘉诚(JPMorgan Cazenove)分析师道德·科恩(Daud Khan)曾在近一年的时间内被禁止参加Autonomy的分析师会议，那之前他曾对该公司的会计操作提出质疑。

“You have 25 analysts covering your stock. Twenty-three are buyers and two are sellers. Why do you care unless they’re hitting a nerve, Mr Khan said yesterday.

科恩近日表示：“总共有25名分析师对你的股票进行评估，其中23人看涨，2人看跌。除非他们触到了痛处，否则你怎么会在乎？

Autonomy relented and allowed him back into meetings after pressure from investors.

在投资者压力下，Autonomy的态度有所缓和，允许科恩重新参加分析师会议。

Mr Morland at Peel Hunt, warned when HP bought the company that “margins have been contracting, profits are growing in single-digits and for some reason those profits aren’t converting into as much cash as they should.

在惠普收购Autonomy时，Peel Hunt的莫兰德曾警告称，“该公司的利润率一直在收缩，利润正以个位数增长，出于一些原因，这些利润没有像应该的那样转化为现金。

Despite being one of the few to allege that something was amiss in Autonomy’s accounting for years, Mr Morland still seemed surprised that HP had missed a potential $5bn hole. “If I could spot it from going through public accounts, then it’s shocking that someone in [HP’s] position could not, he said.

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There were also warnings that, in hindsight, sound telling. Marc Geall, a former head of investor relations who had gone on to work as an analyst at Deutsche Bank, warned that Autonomy had outgrown its controls and systems, becoming a large company with the processes more commonly found in a start-up.

尽管莫兰德是为数不多的多年来声称Autonomy在会计方面存在问题的人之一，但对于惠普遗漏了这个潜在的50亿美元漏洞，他似乎仍然感到吃惊。他表示：“令人震惊的是，我通过翻阅公开报表就能发现问题，而（惠普）方面的人却未能发现。

None of this was enough to dissuade HP’s then-CEO, Léo Apotheker, from placing a stunning bet on Autonomy, making it the centrepiece of his attempt to rebuild the tattered tech conglomerate around software. A shareholder revolt over the scale of the overpayment played a central part in his dismissal from the company weeks later.

还有一些警告在事后听来很能说明问题。Autonomy前投资关系主管、目前是德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)分析师的马克·格奥(Marc Geall)曾警告称， Autonomy抛弃了控制和制度，虽然是一家大公司，但其各种流程在初创企业中更为常见。

None of this, though, gave any warning of the three accounting charges levelled against Autonomy’s former management by HP yesterday.

这些警告都不足以阻止时任惠普首席执行官的李艾科(Léo Apotheker)在Autonomy身上押下令人震惊的重注。李艾科试图以软件业务为核心，让遭受重创的惠普得到重振，并把Autonomy列为这一计划的支柱部分。可是高价收购Autonomy引起了惠普股东们的抗议，成为他几周后离职的一个主要原因。

The first, and largest, relating to the way Autonomy derived a significant slice of its revenue – 10-15 per cent a quarter for the two years before the deal, according to HP – from sales of hardware.

然而，这些分析师们的警告竟然都没有引起惠普方面的警觉。日前，惠普对Autonomy的前管理层提出3项与会计相关的指控。

Although the hardware was sold at a loss, some of the costs were booked as marketing expenses, the US company claimed, making it possible for Autonomy to record a gross profit on the sales.

第一项指控最严重，是针对Autonomy从硬件销售中获得相当大一部分营收的方式。惠普表示，在收购交易之前的两年里，这个比例为每个季度10%至15%。

The UK company also reported the sales as having come from software, adding to the impression that its business was derived exclusively from high-margin software, according to HP.

惠普声称，硬件被亏本出售，但其中一些成本被计为营销支出，这让Autonomy有可能在硬件销售方面录得毛利润。

A second claim levelled by HP concerned sales made through intermediaries known as “value-added resellers. Some of these sales had been booked as revenue by Autonomy even though there had been no end-customers for the deals, it said – a practice known as “channel-stuffing.

惠普称，Autonomy还公布其销售额来自软件，这加深了这种印象：该公司的业务完全来自高利润率软件。

In a third accusation, HP said Autonomy had treated some of its long-term contracts as immediate sales, booking revenue before it should have.

惠普提出的第二项指控与通过被称为“增值分销商(value-added resellers)的中间商完成的销售额有关。惠普表示，其中一些销售额被Autonomy记为收入，尽管这些交易没有任何终端客户。（这一做法被称为“渠道填鸭(channel-stuffing)。）

Mr Lynch denied the allegations.

在第三项指控中，惠普表示，Autonomy将部分长期合约当作即期销售额，在合约尚未完成前就记为收入。

For HP’s CEO Meg Whitman, meanwhile, the revelation that accounting irregularities had apparently spread so widely at Autonomy will raise some uncomfortable questions.

Autonomy前老板迈克·林奇(Mike Lynch)否认这些指控。

“Everybody knows about the ‘winner’s curse’ in tech, said George O’Connor, analyst at Panmure Gordon– a reference to the way bidders willing to pay the highest prices for companies that are considered to be trophy assets often come out as losers.

如今人们知道，会计违规行为在Autonomy内部看来是大量存在的，对惠普首席执行官梅格·惠特曼(Meg Whitman)来说，这将引发一些令人不安的问题。

“For that reason, companies tend to be extra paranoid in terms of going in and doing their due diligence.

Panmure Gordon分析师乔治·奥康诺(George O’Connor)表示：“在科技界，所有人都知道‘赢家的诅咒’(winner’s curse)。这指的是愿意为被视为“炫耀性资产(trophy asset)的公司支付最高收购价的竞标者通常会沦为输家的现象。

“因此，在参与竞购问题上以及开展尽职调查方面，公司往往会格外多疑。